Desiring inefficiency is stupid. I'd rather put farmers out of business and then send them the money they would have made if they were farming and that money comes from the increase in efficiency from the consolidation of farms. They can still farm if they choose to, but it wouldn't be required to live.

I support the liberty of people to do anything they want to do so long as it's not making slaves of other people.

Desiring to make everything efficient is itself inefficient and stupid.Our problem is too much concentration of wealth and power in too few hands, not inefficiency.If you don't like small-scale agriculture, don't support it with your buck.Some people prefer food made the old fashioned way: kinder to animals, the environment, healthier, more wholesome, but if there's no profit in it, it won't be as available.You're going to need an awful lot of taxes, resources and regulations, and you're going to get into conflict with an awful lot of people trying to control every aspect of our lives because you think it indirectly, infinitesimally affects you.

I want a varied, organic, individualistic and creative market, you can keep your efficient, sterile, totalitarian uniformity, where a handful of monstrous megacorporations are given a total monopoly.

Of course you would rather that because you relish the suffering of people. I understand completely.

No, I don't want to masochistically work harder to support someone who can, but won't work.

That's your fetish, leave me out of it.

We do have flying cars. We don't even need a license. For a couple grand you can fly to mcdonalds too:

Speaking of (fuel) inefficiency.

I didn't say we relatively lack new techs, I said we relatively lack new practical techs.

Well, we still have the elimination of disease and conservatives to tackle.

If anything, we're getting unhealthier, see Weston Price.

Humans may be able to improve themselves by genetic modification, but I'm apprehensive about that too, as we'll be losing some of what makes us, us, and we made such a mess of the environment, that I shudder to think what mess we'll make when we start meddling with ourselves.I am not that optimistic about technology, especially cybernetics, genetic modification and robotics, as we're recklessly tinkering with the very fabric of life itself.There are some doors man would be better off keeping closed for now, or forever.

I won't be around to see it.

Because of people like you, mankind won't make it.

Are you trying to be frustrating or what? Read it again.

because no one has money to buy anything.

No, most people will have money to buy everything, only a few people won't.

Price is a function of supply and demand. Period. If price does anything at all, it can only be because of supply or demand or both. Essentially price = demand/supply. If demand = 0, then price = 0. If supply = infinity, then price = 0.

Wage is a function of supply of workers and demand for workers. Welfare decreases the supply of workers and therefore wages rise. If demand for workers = 0, then wages = 0. If supply of workers = infinity, then wages = 0.

Easy stuff. Econ 101.

We're not infinitely increasing the supply of workers, we're increasingly the supply of workers a little, by cutting the voluntarily unemployed off welfare, so wages would only fall a little, but, if prices proportionally fall, that's inconsequential.

It's an argument from ignorance: because I can't think of a way to rally atheists together to commit atrocities.

Really?I can think of several.

Name one.

Xenophobia, Supremacism, Lebensraum.

To have a theory you need correlation and mechanism, but you have neither unless you can cite one instance when atheists allied themselves for the racially pure cause. Once you complete that task, then you can propose a mechanism that explains the correlation.

On the other hand, I have an abundance of correlation associating theists rallying together for the morally absolute cause of racial purity. And my mechanism to explain the correlation is the mindset one chooses to view the world which stems from acknowledgement of absolute truth requisite to theism.

Firstly, while most theists are probably moral absolutists, some theists are moral rationalists and relativists.

That's a contradiction in terms. Theists are by definition absolutists. I posted a video (on this thread I think) where two bright guys discuss every possible angle for knowing absolute truth: one says absolute truth cannot be known without god and the other says absolute truth cannot be known. The only reason to be a theist is to substantiate absolutism.

Secondly, while I prefer reason and relativism to absolutism, absolutism can be good if it promotes rational and what I deem to be good values.

Absolute = made up. If the yardstick for determining "good values" is the absolute truth you made up, then how can the values be said to be good?

You can't exterminate people unless you believe in good and bad, better and worse, superior and inferior, righteous and unrighteous, etc. Those types tend to be theists.

Most atheists don't believe in good and bad, but they believe in my and our good and bad.

An atheist might say a good way to get from A to B is a straight line, or they might say a good way is to take the scenic route. Good and bad are relative to attainment of a goal, so whatever the goal is determines what is considered good.

Theism is only bad when it's used to sanction dictatorship, when it's apolitical or used to sanction democracy it's tolerable or acceptable.

Theism and democracy are antipodal. Watts noted the dichotomy of the america people who claim to be citizens of a republic but worshiping a monarchical king. If people think the best model for the universe is a monarchy, why would they think the best form of government is a democracy? Indeed, those same people insist a small group of people control the masses lest mob rule prevail. The atheists, residing on the Left, think democracy is the best form of government and reject the monarchical model of the universe.

Going to battle is one thing, but genocide is another. I may even concede greed-wars fought by atheists, but not righteous wars where the goal is to annihilate the enemy on ideological grounds.

Well, hundreds of millions of atheist and apatheist Chinese did and do.

In service of their emperor god, sure.

Conservatives blame drugs instead of people.

They blame both, whereas democrats only blame drugs.

Then why only conservatives ban drugs? Clearly they blame the drug.

They blame government in principle instead of a particular mismanagement of government.

I don't like conservatives because they blame government in principle.

I don't like liberals because they mismanage government by propping up minorities, the underclass and women at the expense of the majority, the working class and men.

I'm with you on feminism.

And while I trust our government more than corporations in one way because at least our government is partly democratic, I trust corporations more than our government in another because a corrupt government can do more damage than corrupt corporations.Corrupt corporations can't do as much damage without government support, as a corrupt government can do without corrupt corporations support.

Stop catering to rich people and neither are a threat. The rich cannot serve in government or it's the fox guarding the henhouse.

Republicans are the prohibition party that bans everything including guns.

While both dems and republicans have gone after guns, dems more so.

Republicans ban everything. Dems only guns.

I was watching a video on Pol Pot or Mao (I forgot) and he instructed the people to forsake the rice patties and start making steel, so all the people dropped the farm implements and headed to the factory. Then they all starved because no one was growing rice. What would cause masses of people to do such nonsense? If Trump gave a similar order, most people would give him the middle finger. Those people were not coerced, but willingly obeyed who they regarded as god. The people were neurologically wired to take orders from divinities and act collectively.

Right, "If Trump gave a similar order, most people would give him the middle finger", including most Christian Americans.

Shit!

Dg6BELGUwAAaHXi.jpg (159.81 KiB) Viewed 4708 times

Obedient robots.

For whatever reasons, cultural, geographical, genetic, the Chinese seem more docile and domesticated than, not only most Europeans, but most Africans, east Indians, Latin and Native Americans for that matter.

But the vast majority of these wars weren't fought over one religion trying to supplant another, but for predominantly secular reasons.

There are only greed wars and righteous wars. How many were greed wars?

Heck, the christians, muslims, and jews can't stand each other and they all serve the same god. If they served no god, then they'd get along fine.

But Christians get along with each other real well, lol, well so long as they belong to the same sect!

Jews and Christians have by and large been demilitarized and deradicalized now, it's only Muslims we have to worry about, and progressive's coddle them, shelter them from necessary criticisms, consequently preventing them from undertaking necessary reforms, meanwhile they exaggerate the threat Christians pose.

Where is evidence that progressives coddle muslims? I haven't researched it specifically, but last time I looked up Merkel, I found she was conservative. Is there someone who is not really a conservative under a socialist banner coddling muslims?

My point was you paint religion with too broad a brush, most pagans and modern monotheists get along with everyone.

Sure, exceptions apply.

Then explain the war on communism (vietnam, korea) and the war on terror. They were led around like good lil robots. Christians never pass an opportunity for a war.

Secular progressives are almost as bad as religious conservatives when it comes to war.

And Secular progressives are worse when it comes to defending our borders, and they make excuses for minorities who commit crimes.

I thought progressives didn't want a border. They also want to reduce the military.

Maybe, but they'll still get up late and not show just like they do when it comes time to vote.

But the Muslims they're letting in get up bright and early.

We haven't established that progressives are at fault yet.

If that's the case, why did he mention christianity at all? If he had to hold his tongue, then he should have held it, but he chose not to. Your theory is very far-fetched. It's much more likely he was christian and changed his mind like

As far as I know, Hitler never spoke of a Jesus dying-rising for the sins of mankind, he spoke of a 1 dimensional, predominantly despiritualized Jesus who hated Jews.He deliberately distorted Jesus to persuade Christian Germans to genocide the Jews.

I haven't seen anything he distorted. Afterall, Hitler lamented jesus was a weenie.

And then in the last several years of his life, but probably much, much earlier, he discussed plans with his inner circle to ultimately annihilate Christianity after the war

.Conjecture.

Positive Christianity (German: Positives Christentum) was a movement within Nazi Germany which mixed ideas of racial purity and Nazi ideology with elements of Christianity. Adolf Hitler used the term in article 24[a] of the 1920 Nazi Party Platform, stating: "the Party represents the standpoint of Positive Christianity". Nondenominational, the term could be variously interpreted. Positive Christianity allayed fears among Germany's Christian majority as expressed through their hostility towards the established churches of large sections of the Nazi movement.[2] In 1937, Hans Kerrl, the Nazi Minister for Church Affairs, explained that "Positive Christianity" was not "dependent upon the Apostle's Creed", nor was it dependent on "faith in Christ as the son of God", upon which Christianity relied, rather, it was represented by the Nazi Party: "The Führer is the herald of a new revelation", he said.[3] To accord with Nazi antisemitism, positive Christianity advocates also sought to deny the Semitic origins of Christ and the Bible. In such elements positive Christianity separated itself from Nicene Christianity and is considered apostate by all of the historical Trinitarian Christian churches, whether Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant.

I don't see the significance of this.

Hitler identified himself as a Christian in a 12 April 1922 speech.[4] Hitler also identified himself as a Christian in Mein Kampf. However, historians, including Ian Kershaw and Laurence Rees, characterize his acceptance of the term positive Christianity and his involvement in religious policy as being driven by opportunism, and by a pragmatic recognition of the political importance of the Christian Churches in Germany.

That is the assumption I reject on the basis of what I said before. You may as well claim I pretended to be christian in case I run for president one day.

[2] Nevertheless, efforts by the regime to impose a Nazified "positive Christianity" on a state-controlled Protestant Reich Church essentially failed, and it resulted in the formation of the dissident Confessing Church which saw great danger to Germany from the "new religion".[5] The Catholic Church also denounced the creed's pagan myth of "blood and soil" in the 1937 papal encyclical Mit brennender Sorge. The official Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg played an important role in the development of "positive Christianity", which he conceived in discord with both Rome and the Protestant church, whom he called "negative Christianity".[6] Richard Steigmann-Gall queries whether this made Rosenberg a genuine anti-Christian.[7] Rosenberg conceived of positive Christianity as a transitional faith and amid the failure of the regime's efforts to control Protestantism through the agency of the pro-Nazi "German Christians", Rosenberg, along with fellow radicals Robert Ley and Baldur von Schirach backed the neo-pagan "German Faith Movement", which more completely rejected Judeo-Christian conceptions of God.[8] During the war, Rosenberg drafted a plan for the future of religion in Germany which would see the "expulsion of the foreign Christian religions" and replacement of the Bible with Mein Kampf and the cross with the swastika in Nazified churches.[9]

Lots of time passed between 1937 and 1922. What evidence do you have that Hitler was not a christian in 1922? I call bullshit on this whole theory: replacing the bible with Mein Kampf is a silly notion and I can't believe anyone in the Nazi party would have envisioned so. Either germans are much dumber than I thought or historians are dreaming.

Yeah, people used to say he had a chair made of human bones too.

I think a lot of that is just Hitler haters making things up.

There was some diversity of personal views among the Nazi leadership as to the future of religion in Germany. Anti-Church radicals included Hitler's Personal Secretary Martin Bormann, Minister for Propaganda Joseph Goebbels, paganist Nazi Philosopher Alfred Rosenberg, and paganist occultist Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler. Some Nazis, such as Hans Kerrl, who served as Hitler's Minister for Church Affairs pushed for "Positive Christianity", which was a uniquely Nazi form which rejected its Jewish origins and the Old Testament, and portrayed "true" Christianity as a fight against Jews, with Jesus depicted as an Aryan.[8]

I posted that on here myself a couple weeks ago. What's your point? In the whole nazi party, two guys were paganists. And that's theism.

Your boy Hitchens had no bloody clue what he was talking about.

either that or he was deliberately spreading malicious misinformation and lies.

Talk about dreaming! You're struggling to defend a far-fetched and nonsensical theory in effort find some redemption for christianity, and the extents to which you're going on this crusade are totally transparent. You have incentive to lie and are appealing to others who have incentive to lie in order to paint Hitler as a liar in his own book.

Find some hard evidence that Hitler himself said in 1922 that he was not a christian and was bullshitting the people, not some historian's opinion nor the opinion of some random nazi member.

Until you do that, the only evidence on the table was in 1941 with Hitler's table talk. And the most plausible explanation is that he was once christian and changed his mind, like 99% of all other atheists.

And I'm still not convinced he was ever an atheist:

In his summary Langer outlined eight possible scenarios for Hitler's course of action in the face of defeat. The most likely scenario, he suggested in a prescient moment, was that Hitler's belief in divine protection would compel him to fight to the bitter end, "drag[ging] a world with us—a world in flames," and that ultimately he would take his own life.

Langer based his assessment not only on Hitler's repeated references to "divine providence," both in speeches and in private conversations, but also on reports from some of Hitler's most intimate associates that Hitler truly believed he was "predestined" for greatness and inspired by "divine powers." After the war Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, one of Hitler's chief military advisers, seemed to confirm the Langer thesis. "Looking back," he said, "I am inclined to think he was literally obsessed with the idea of some miraculous salvation, that he clung to it like a drowning man to a straw."https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/ar ... ry/302727/

1) Hitler was born catholic.2) At some point he lost faith in christianity.3) But never lost faith in god.

All this is moot anyway since what's at issue is whether the people were theists and whether Hitler needed to leverage that theism in order to commit atrocities.

Actually faith in reason isn't reasonable.

Then it's not reasonable for you to have faith in your own statement.

It's never, intrinsically reasonable to have faith in anything, faith and reason are antonyms, altho I suppose it can be extrinsically reasonable.

I don't have faith in my statement, I know it to be the case.

How can you know anything? Knowing = 100% confidence.

Well I think it to be the case (less than 100% confidence but more than 50%).

So, suspect is a better word. "I don't have faith confidence in my statement, I know suspect it to be the case." That isn't reasonable lol

How do you type that i with 2 dots? My keyboard doesn't have that symbol.

My computer autocorrected the word.

Cheater lol

Amazing that someone so highly regarded as chomsky would miss something so obvious. I'm sure he could learn a lot from you lol

Right, no need to critically think for yourself, just find the most highly regarded thinker of your day, and imitate what they say without comprehending a thing, or being able to prove it to yourself or anyone.

If you didn't do that, then how would you pass his class? I tell my friend that he could never get a degree because he'd have to tell his professors they are wrong. Plus, history is subjective and it's difficult to really prove anything.

The thing about Chomsky and Watts and Hitchens is they devour books, which is something I can't do, certainly not to the extent they can, then they rehash in a way normal people can absorb. Watts hardly had a novel notion and just about everything he said was plagiarized from someone else.

Me, on the other hand, most of my theories are novel and original. I developed the redistributive taxation model myself without outside influence, then found Watts agreed with me; then found Wolff agreed with me; then found Chomsky agreed with me. I developed Jared Diamond's theory before I knew who Diamond was. I posted it online and some guy said "That looks a lot like Diamond's Gun, Germs, and Steel". I said, "What's that?" He suggested I read his book, but I said I don't read books. Then, after making fun of me, he sent me the youtube link to the movie. I watched the movie and thought it was an hour of time to say 5-min-worth of stuff. Glad I didn't read the book.

Anyway, Hitler is someone else's idea, but most of my work is my own and I use highly regarded intellectuals for confirmation. But still, critical thinking aside, it's not likely Chomsky is going to be wrong. It's more likely that you are going to be wrong.

Yeah I guess so. The gas tax paid by the poor fixes the roads that the corps use to transport goods to make profits on. The privatization of profits and socialization of costs. That's capitalism!

If they removed the taxes then who'd fix the roads?

Libertarians just want taxes for infrastructure, the military and police.

Yes and they want the poor to pay for it.

It's not spin. Why on earth would you tax the poor to give welfare to the poor? That makes no sense. The only reason the poor pay any tax is to placate republicans bitching about fairness.

Once in office, overwhelmingly republicrats don't give two shits about fairness.They're not really conservative, libertarian or progressive, they're conmen, and they will warp any and every ideology to suit their special interests.

Republicrats aren't seeing the money, so why do they care? No, it's about fairness to their dimwitted minds: they think if the rich have to pay a tax that's it's only fair that the poor also pay the tax. That's the rationale behind the gas tax: let the ones who use the roads pay for the roads. But the corps get far more use from the roads than regular people.

Either money flows from the poor to the rich or the money is recirculated. There isn't another way of doing it, so however it's mixed up, the end result determines what system it should be considered.

I'm not conservative or progressive, I'm populist, I define that as wealth, resources and power flowing to the working class, not to the elite, nor to minorities, the underclass and women at the expense of the majority, the working class and men.

There are only two ways: either the economy is circular or unidirectional: either the wealth recirculates or moves up.

redistribution.jpg (137.16 KiB) Viewed 4708 times

I'm not sure I want socialism. I think I just want to go back to the 1930-1980 period, but with a negative tax at the bottom. I don't think I want state ownership of companies or even co-ops. Just put it back how it was and issue negative tax.

Unless dems radically change for the better somehow, you'll either get more of what you have now: low-mid flat-progressive taxes, or what Nordic countries have: mid-high flat-progressive taxes.If you want no taxes for the poor and high taxes for the rich, you'll have to vote 3rd party, independent or form your own party.The republicrats are 100% bought and paid for by the ruling class.

Bernie threw his hat in the candidacy.

No, it means that wages will have to rise to lure people into work. If you get $10k UBI, are you going to quit your job? I asked everyone I could and only 1 person said she'd quit (because $10k is more than what she's making and she'd rather stay home with her kids). Most people laughed at the idea of quitting a decent job for a paltry $10k.

Again, I know several people on disability for anxiety and depression.They all confessed to me they were able to work full time, altho it would be difficult.They all live unhealthily hedonistic lifestyles.Moreover they have the option to work and make an additional 1000 dollars a month on top of the 1000 dollars a month of disability they receive, which would help them eat and live better, but they won't even work single day per week, they refuse to.

So what? They have the right not to work if they don't want to. You want to force them to work for the profit of another. You can't stand it that someone is not prostituting themselves like you are. Well, you can either quit working and join them or else continue working and continue having more money. What's your problem?

Conservatism = the haunting fear that someone somewhere might be having fun.

Goodness... you still haven't understood. Wage-slavery! Hello! Parasites is the name you're giving to those who protest being slaves. Good grief man, because people choose not to prostitute themselves for the benefit of the rich, you characterize them as parasites. After all our exchanges your continued inability to get your head around this is astounding. I'm at a loss for how to snap you out of this idea that people must be forced to contribute profits to the elites in order to survive.

I can help make Bezos richer or I can help make Buffett richer or I can help make Dimon richer or I can starve. Hmmm... what's wrong with this picture?

If you eliminate all concepts of profit so that no one could profit from the slavery of people, then I might concede that everyone should pitch in, but that's communism, ya know. Are you a closet communist?

No you're much worse because not only do you want everyone to contribute to the workforce, but you want the fruits of their labors concentrated into few hands. So it's the bad parts of communism + the bad parts of capitalism = your system. Force people to work and steal their fruits and give it to the lazy rich who do nothing.

If we end the war on drugs, the war on terror, cut taxes for the working and middle class down to 0, tax the upperclass @50-90%, and give it all back to the working and middle class in the form of free education, free healthcare, improved working conditions and doubling, tripling, quadrupling (as much as the 50-90% taxes can pay) everyone's salary (so again, if you make 20, or 120 grand at your job, government will give you an additional 20, or 120 grand), work will no longer be that exploitative, as the majority of profits will go to the working and middle class.

How are you going to increase everyone's salary when the only possible way (outside of dictating wages) is to give people money for free? Read carefully: The only way to cause wages to rise is to give people the option not to work. Once people have the option to opt-out of the workforce, corps will have to raise wages to entice them back in. Alternatively, you could be dictator and decree wages higher or you could socialize all of industry such that every industry is under the management of the government and then everyone will be a government worker, then you could set wages how you like. But as long as private industry exists, then wages will be based on people's options, and if people do not have the option to work, then wages will always be low. The only way to hurt the poor is to hurt yourself.

How do you arrive at that? We go from people being ignorant of how to raise a kid to needing licensing to buy groceries?

Well, people are somewhat ignorant about nutrition, drugs, relationships, pregnancy and STIs too, so I guess we need compulsory courses for every aspect of life.

Having properly reared kids is imperative to society. People's knowledge about those other things doesn't matter so much.

What substantiation could you possibly offer in support of that assertion?

What could you possibly offer against it?

I don't remember what it was.

I don't hear mothers complaining: we have no bloody idea how to raise our kids, we demand compulsory parental courses!

Put it to a vote. People said it should be illegal to smoke around kids, so I'm betting they would be onboard with compulsory parenting education.

If someone is legally retarded, below 70 iQ and dependent on government, than sure, it will be necessary for the state to intervene, but even then it should be minimal.

You said genetic similarity is all that mattered, so therefore iq is irrelevant and a woman can be retarded, but still better at raising kids than the state by virtue of genetics. That is your position. Now if you retract that position and center it around knowledge, then you'll be up against the combined wisdom of academia. Most girls in my area have a whole litter before 18, so what does a 100 iq trailer park chick know about raising 3 kids before being legally able to drink? Not a damn thing which is why those kids never leave the trailer park, except when they go to prison.

I didn't say it's all that mattered, they both matter, I just emphasized genetic similarity.I think most mothers will agree with me when I say: their children should fundamentally be in their care, that the state should only intervene in extreme cases of mental deficiency and neglect.

Kids should be in the parent's care, but the parents should be educated how to care.

Surely they are smart enough to answer a simple direct question. It looks like democracy scares you.

It doesn't, I'm confident the vast majority of people will side with me on this, but if they don't, I guess I'll have to move to another country, I don't want government the majority of people telling me how to run my life.

FIFY

Watching tatted up floozies who can't read or do math teaching kids who to read and do math ought to be fun.

You and I may have been able to educate ourselves, but most kids would drift listlessly from game to game. Beside chess, the last game I played was pacman. I won't go near games because I'm scared I might like them and then my life is over.

Kids just need to know the basics: English and math.If parents aren't equipped to teach them to their kids, they can voluntarily send them to school, but the vast majority of parents are equipped and realize the importance of them, the only trouble is they don't have enough time to homeschool.

I'm sure western imperialism had something to do with it, but everything?

Yes I think so. Without those oceans the US wouldn't have had the shielding to break loose of Britain in the first place.

Italy and Greece didn't have a single ocean, yet that's where democracy got started.Switzerland didn't even have a sea, yet that's where democracy got rediscovered.

The US doesn't have democracy, and yet the US is still the most powerful. That is my point: in spite of a feudal system, the US prevailed BECAUSE of the oceans. Greece and whatever reinforce my point.

Western imperialism couldn't stop Japan, South Korea and Taiwan from becoming liberal democracies, nor Brunei, Hong Kong, Macau and Singapore, nor some countries in Latin America and other parts of Asia from becoming quasi-liberal democracies.

They didn't need to because the hulls are bursting with swag pillaged from the plunder of plenty of people already.

Funny how the strongest non-white democracies are all in one place.

What's funny is the most socialist countries are at the top of the economic prosperity list while the most capitalistic are at the bottom, except the US, which prospered because of the oceans and in spite of capitalism. Race, apparently, has nothing to do with anything.

Economic growth during the 1990s and 2000s, with the GDP increasing 56% from 1999 to 2008, transformed Brunei into an industrialised country. It has developed wealth from extensive petroleum and natural gas fields. Brunei has the second-highest Human Development Index among the Southeast Asian nations, after Singapore, and is classified as a "developed country".[13] According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Brunei is ranked fifth in the world by gross domestic product per capita at purchasing power parity. The IMF estimated in 2011 that Brunei was one of two countries (the other being Libya) with a public debt at 0% of the national GDP. Forbes also ranks Brunei as the fifth-richest nation out of 182, based on its petroleum and natural gas fields.[14]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brunei

According to that list, these countries spend more than 50% of GDP publicly:

Probably. Chomsky noted that democracy exists in places where the US has least influence. Democracy is essentially a function of the absence of US presence.

The US didn't have a great influence in Germany, Italy, South Korea and Japan?

Did the US send arms to rebels in germany to overthrow the government like in south american countries?

As the US closed bases in germany and began to leave, democracy increased. The more the US gets out of the way, the more democracy takes hold. The only reason the US exists in other countries is to prevent democracy for its own profit.

The UK didn't have a great influence in Pakistan, India, Macau and Hong Kong?

I have no idea.

Blacks are still the slaves of whites.

Why aren't Asians?

They are. So are mexicans. And Indians. And anyone else.

They don't have oceans on either side.

Why were the Americans able to extend themselves to the other side of the continent, but the Brazilians weren't?Why weren't the Mexicans able to hold 'Aztlan', and expand?

Europeans were technologically advanced by virtue of horses, domesticated animals, grains, good soil. We've been over that.

While technically India doesn't have oceans on either side, it's surrounded by an ocean, which was named after it, because it's in a central position in that ocean between three continents, yet it didn't colonize, nor trade with them as extensively as whites.

Ditto

Why didn't the Chinese colonize the Americas when they had the chance?

When did they have the chance?

If you think race, or at least culture has nothing to do with this, you've got the blinders on.

If you think race, or at least culture has anything to do with this, you've got the blinders on.

Of course race and culture do, and scientists like Richard Lynn and Philippe Rushton will tell you that, in contradistinction to Chomsky and Diamond.

1 scientist out of every 100 might tell me that. Unless the two you mentioned are the only two.

Desiring inefficiency is stupid. I'd rather put farmers out of business and then send them the money they would have made if they were farming and that money comes from the increase in efficiency from the consolidation of farms. They can still farm if they choose to, but it wouldn't be required to live.

I support the liberty of people to do anything they want to do so long as it's not making slaves of other people.

Desiring to make everything efficient is itself inefficient and stupid.

How do you figure that? It's stupid to want an engine to make more power with less fuel?

Our problem is too much concentration of wealth and power in too few hands, not inefficiency.

Wealth concentration is inefficient.

If you don't like small-scale agriculture, don't support it with your buck.

I don't usually, but it's because it's expensive and inconvenient and not really a protest.

Some people prefer food made the old fashioned way: kinder to animals, the environment, healthier, more wholesome, but if there's no profit in it, it won't be as available.

We are talking in the context of taking a scientific approach to society, so profit is not a main driving force. Welfare of animals and nutrition would be variables taken into account once we change the focus from profit to efficiency.

You're going to need an awful lot of taxes, resources and regulations, and you're going to get into conflict with an awful lot of people trying to control every aspect of our lives because you think it indirectly, infinitesimally affects you.

Well that's what I've been trying to say: the only reason we can't engineer an efficient society is those who are against it are still sucking air. The faster they crash their harleys, the sooner we can get on with it.

I want a varied, organic, individualistic and creative market, you can keep your efficient, sterile, totalitarian uniformity, where a handful of monstrous megacorporations are given a total monopoly.

No one is taking that away, but I don't want 1000000000000000000000000000000000 farms charging outrageous prices for hype.

Of course you would rather that because you relish the suffering of people. I understand completely.

No, I don't want to masochistically work harder to support someone who can, but won't work.

Then don't work.

That's your fetish, leave me out of it.

No let's put this in perspective.

Me: I want to take money from bezos and give it to people who don't work. You: You're going to take from someone who is not me and give it to someone who is not me? Oh the horror! I can't stand it! This doesn't affect me, but drives me insane because I cannot bear the thought that someone somewhere might get something for nothing!Me: Bezos gets astronomical amounts of somethings for nothing. Amazon never made a single dime of profit in 16 years, yet bezos was worth over $50 billion. Why aren't you having a cow?You: It only bothers me when poor people get something for nothing. They should be forced at gunpoint to work for bezos so he can have more money for nothing, then we can tax bezos and use the proceeds to magically raise my wages.Me: So bezos is just a proxy to funnel the fruits of the forced-labor camp back to you. I see.You: No! Everyone's wages go up!Me: Yes, but most-especially yours. At the end of the day, it's a scheme to force people to work to increase your own wages.You: No! Umm... er... ah... No! It's not!Me: What it boils down to is you can't tolerate someone getting something for nothing. You think everyone should suffer to survive.

just26:02because of a psychological hang-up, and26:04that hang-up is that money is real and26:06that people ought to suffer in order to26:11get it but the whole point of the26:14machine is to relieve you of that26:15suffering. It is an ingenuity you see. We26:18are psychologically back in the 17th26:22century and technically in the 20th.

Well, we still have the elimination of disease and conservatives to tackle.

If anything, we're getting unhealthier, see Weston Price.

Love Weston Price.

Humans may be able to improve themselves by genetic modification, but I'm apprehensive about that too, as we'll be losing some of what makes us, us, and we made such a mess of the environment, that I shudder to think what mess we'll make when we start meddling with ourselves.I am not that optimistic about technology, especially cybernetics, genetic modification and robotics, as we're recklessly tinkering with the very fabric of life itself.There are some doors man would be better off keeping closed for now, or forever.

I won't be around to see it.

Because of people like you, mankind won't make it.

Mankind won't make it anyway. The universe won't last forever.

Price is a function of supply and demand. Period. If price does anything at all, it can only be because of supply or demand or both. Essentially price = demand/supply. If demand = 0, then price = 0. If supply = infinity, then price = 0.

Wage is a function of supply of workers and demand for workers. Welfare decreases the supply of workers and therefore wages rise. If demand for workers = 0, then wages = 0. If supply of workers = infinity, then wages = 0.

Easy stuff. Econ 101.

We're not infinitely increasing the supply of workers, we're increasingly the supply of workers a little, by cutting the voluntarily unemployed off welfare, so wages would only fall a little, but, if prices proportionally fall, that's inconsequential.

If you cut people off welfare, then people are forced to work to survive. Because people are forced to work, wages will plummet. Why pay high wages if people are forced to take whatever you offer? "I offer you 25 cents per day. You can take it or go starve. I have a line of applicants a mile long after you."

The only things holding wages up as high as they are now is welfare, min wage, government jobs, and parents.

slaves to whites, that is. Well, I don't have a full answer, but here's part of my reaction to this issue. Asians are very good at making themselves slaves to themselves (and their families), cutting off their own emotions, cutting themself off from the joys of life, and ignoring interpersonal dynamics - or perhaps better put, hiding their reactions to them. These all benefit people who live in fucked up societies. Whites are not as good as the Asians at this, and blacks are worse than that. Fine, you can say, they are worse at something. I don't think these are things to be good at. I am going to black box the culture vs. nature issue, just acknowledge that there are differences. I am going to generally what is, of course, a spectrum. Asians would (seem to, I would argue) thrive while internally ripping out things I consider essential human from their souls. Whites can do it, and often look at the Asians and think 'where is the person or the individual, or the life soul in that person.' Well, blacks look at whites and wonder the same thing. What is that deadness? This is fucking LIFE?

There is a real downside to loving life, especially the bristling passionate on inside yourself.

Most of us pretend. Most of those pretending are not aware of how much they are sitting on emotionally or giving up or are not really that alive, just kind of husks walking around doing what they are told and believing it.

When I am with blacks, as opposed to white and Asians, I feel like I am more in the real world, with people who are actually reacting to it and feeling it. This doesn't make it all peachy. The real world has those of us who feel swirling with stress and not pleasant reactions (amidst the rest) but I feel in a room with people actually connected to reality and giving a shit abuot it, and also connected to their own reactions to it and really caring about that. I feel that less with whites, and even less with Asians.

People who succeed in our society often cut parts of themselves out. I am not sure that being better at this is simply better.

To have a theory you need correlation and mechanism, but you have neither unless you can cite one instance when atheists allied themselves for the racially pure cause. Once you complete that task, then you can propose a mechanism that explains the correlation.

On the other hand, I have an abundance of correlation associating theists rallying together for the morally absolute cause of racial purity. And my mechanism to explain the correlation is the mindset one chooses to view the world which stems from acknowledgement of absolute truth requisite to theism.

I can give you examples of predominantly theistic nations allying themselves, against the 'racially pure cause', can you give me an example of a predominantly atheistic nation allying itself against the racially pure cause?

That's a contradiction in terms. Theists are by definition absolutists. I posted a video (on this thread I think) where two bright guys discuss every possible angle for knowing absolute truth: one says absolute truth cannot be known without god and the other says absolute truth cannot be known. The only reason to be a theist is to substantiate absolutism.

Atheist Ayn Rand was a moral absolutist, theist Spinoza was a moral relativist.

And for some people, being a theist makes them happier, because they feel cared for.

Absolute = made up. If the yardstick for determining "good values" is the absolute truth you made up, then how can the values be said to be good?

I'm not necessarily against, and may be in favor of someone absolutely supporting values I relatively support.

And while absolute = made up, made up doesn't necessarily = absolute.

An atheist might say a good way to get from A to B is a straight line, or they might say a good way is to take the scenic route. Good and bad are relative to attainment of a goal, so whatever the goal is determines what is considered good.

An atheist may say it's relatively, or absolutely good to kill a person, or people.

Theism and democracy are antipodal. Watts noted the dichotomy of the america people who claim to be citizens of a republic but worshiping a monarchical king. If people think the best model for the universe is a monarchy, why would they think the best form of government is a democracy? Indeed, those same people insist a small group of people control the masses lest mob rule prevail. The atheists, residing on the Left, think democracy is the best form of government and reject the monarchical model of the universe.

Are animism, deism, pantheism, polytheism and trinitarianism (gracious or merciful monotheism) on the one hand, and democracy on the other antipodal?

In service of their emperor god, sure.

When did Mao claim or his followers proclaim him to, literally be a god?

Then why only conservatives ban drugs? Clearly they blame the drug.

They blame the dealers and users too, that's why they imprison them, meanwhile progressives blame the addiction, which they attribute to an absent or abusive conservative father, capitalism, poverty...anything and everything but the individual.

Stop catering to rich people and neither are a threat. The rich cannot serve in government or it's the fox guarding the henhouse.

While instituting checks and balances (which ought to include the division and, right limitations of powers (I have little respect for corporate sovereignty, but great respect for the sovereignty of individuals, families, communities, nations and small businesses) will help, any and every institution, including, perhaps especially government, is corruptible, and government corruption is the worst, because it's organized violence.

Republicans ban everything. Dems only guns.

Democrats ban you from banning people, and behaviors from your family, business, country, club, community and church.

Shit!

Obedient robots.

Trump, like Hitllary can get away with soft tyranny, not hard.

There are only greed wars and righteous wars. How many were greed wars?

Greed masquerading as religious, or secular righteousness is the rule, real righteousness the exception.

Where is evidence that progressives coddle muslims? I haven't researched it specifically, but last time I looked up Merkel, I found she was conservative. Is there someone who is not really a conservative under a socialist banner coddling muslims?

And the German parties to the left of Merkel want to coddle them even more.

Trump wants to ban all or some Muslims permanently or temporarily, ban all Muslim refugees, institute more background checks and surveillance on and of Muslims and he's not afraid to use the term radical Islam, meanwhile democrats oppose him on all this.

I thought progressives didn't want a border. They also want to reduce the military.

They want a looser border, and while they, say they want to reduce the military, they're often nearly as hawkish as Republicans, and both the green party, and the libertarians would probably reduce the military a hell of a lot more.

I haven't seen anything he distorted. Afterall, Hitler lamented jesus was a weenie.

Here's just one example:

To accord with Nazi antisemitism, positive Christianity advocates also sought to deny the Semitic origins of Christ and the Bible.

Referring to Hitler as Christian makes about as much sense as referring to Stalin as a communist.Other than claiming to be Christian, not only was everything Hitler did and said unchristian, but it was anti-Christian.There's no such thing as a perfect Christian, but so what?There's no such thing as a perfect anything.Hitler was about as far from Christian as one could possibly get.The question now is: for how long was Hitler, consciously anti-Christian?

In 1937, Hans Kerrl, the Nazi Minister for Church Affairs, explained that "Positive Christianity" was not "dependent upon the Apostle's Creed", nor was it dependent on "faith in Christ as the son of God", upon which Christianity relied, rather, it was represented by the Nazi Party: "The Führer is the herald of a new revelation", he said.

In such elements positive Christianity separated itself from Nicene Christianity and is considered apostate by all of the historical Trinitarian Christian churches, whether Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant.

I don't see the significance of this.

The Nazi Party was at best apathetic about Christ's divinity and at worst hostile to Christ, and so at best apathetic about or hostile to Christianity.

That is the assumption I reject on the basis of what I said before. You may as well claim I pretended to be christian in case I run for president one day.

If we caught a political party pretending to be Christian for at least the last 8 years of its existence (1937-1945, which is when they committed their atrocities, mind you), than not only is there no reason to believe they weren't pretending to be Christian the entire time, but if anything they probably were.

replacing the bible with Mein Kampf is a silly notion and I can't believe anyone in the Nazi party would have envisioned so. Either germans are much dumber than I thought or historians are dreaming.

He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future.

Adolf Hitler

Historians probably have fair-good reasons for believing this was Alfred Rosenberg and the Nazi Party's intent, what reason do you have for disregarding them?You haven't presented any.

I posted that on here myself a couple weeks ago. What's your point? In the whole nazi party, two guys were paganists. And that's theism.

There's too much emphasis on Hitler and not enough on the Nazi Party.even if Hitler was Christian (which he wasn't, in fact he was (consciously) anti-Christian), the Nazi party had some pagans, irreligious theists, so it can't be blamed solely on a single religion.

You have incentive to lie and are appealing to others who have incentive to lie in order to paint Hitler as a liar in his own book.

I have no incentive to lie, I'm agnostic, and insofar as historians have reason to lie, Hitchens, who was an atheist and vehemently anti-Christian, all the more so.

All this is moot anyway since what's at issue is whether the people were theists and whether Hitler needed to leverage that theism in order to commit atrocities.

The point is not all theism is equal, some forms are easier to use to commit atrocities, or good deeds for that matter than others.

So, suspect is a better word. "I don't have faith confidence in my statement, I know suspect it to be the case." That isn't reasonable lol

I have reason to suspect.It's irrational to be 100% certain of anything.

If you didn't do that, then how would you pass his class?

This is a philosophy forum, not his class, there is no authority here.

But still, critical thinking aside, it's not likely Chomsky is going to be wrong. It's more likely that you are going to be wrong.

Says the guy who casually dismisses what multiple historians have to say about the Nazi Party's religion.

Perhaps unlikely, but if unlikely, that still doesn't mean it's not worth critically examining him.It's also unlikely he's 100% right and his reader 100% wrong where they disagree or his reader has doubts or questions, and if the reader doesn't critically examine everything, he'll never uncover what Chomsky is wrong about.

Two heads are better than one.So long as the reader is fairly knowledgeable and reasonable, if he critically interprets Chomsky, he, and you'll be getting Chomsky's brain + the reader's, instead of just Chomsky's.

Insofar as history and sociology are art, Chomsky may be popular among academics primarily for his art.

Insofar as history and sociology are about man's love of authority, certainty and hierarchy, he, and his school of thought may've been somewhat arbitrarily chosen to be number one, because there has to be a number one, even if many of the alternatives are about equally knowledgeable and reasonable.

Chomsky may be highly regarded because he's primarily, well, highly regarded, many of his colleagues may've happened to be mistaken about him, and the colleagues of those colleagues may've had faith in their judgement, and so on down the line, so a big part of Chomsky's success may be luck, many people highly regarding him primarily because many people highly regard him, and few people ever critically examining him.

Yes and they want the poor to pay for it.

They want everyone to pay for it.

Republicrats aren't seeing the money, so why do they care? No, it's about fairness to their dimwitted minds: they think if the rich have to pay a tax that's it's only fair that the poor also pay the tax. That's the rationale behind the gas tax: let the ones who use the roads pay for the roads. But the corps get far more use from the roads than regular people.

Republicrats are bribed by special interests who stand to gain from their allegiance.

There are only two ways: either the economy is circular or unidirectional: either the wealth recirculates or moves up.

You think too much about money, and not enough about the fact that those who choose to work will have to worker harder for less stuff if millions of people quit their job to live solely off UBI.

How are you going to increase everyone's salary when the only possible way (outside of dictating wages) is to give people money for free? Read carefully: The only way to cause wages to rise is to give people the option not to work. Once people have the option to opt-out of the workforce, corps will have to raise wages to entice them back in. Alternatively, you could be dictator and decree wages higher or you could socialize all of industry such that every industry is under the management of the government and then everyone will be a government worker, then you could set wages how you like. But as long as private industry exists, then wages will be based on people's options, and if people do not have the option to work, then wages will always be low. The only way to hurt the poor is to hurt yourself.

Here's what I mean by what I'm now calling BSI (basic supplementary income):Government directly pays the employed and involuntarily unemployed 10000$ annually at the richest 1%'s expense in addition to whatever their employers or welfare are already paying them themselves, it doesn't force employers to raise their wages.

Having properly reared kids is imperative to society. People's knowledge about those other things doesn't matter so much.

How're you going to know how to take care of your kids if, according to you, you don't even know how to take care of yourself?

The US doesn't have democracy, and yet the US is still the most powerful. That is my point: in spite of a feudal system, the US prevailed BECAUSE of the oceans. Greece and whatever reinforce my point.

The US has more democracy than say Brazil, Russia and China.

What's funny is the most socialist countries are at the top of the economic prosperity list while the most capitalistic are at the bottom, except the US, which prospered because of the oceans and in spite of capitalism. Race, apparently, has nothing to do with anything.

According to a list of private consumption I found online (and haven't verified yet, but I will), Brunei is the the most socialist country, publicly spending a whopping 80% of GDP. https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/v ... ominal-gdp

Economic growth during the 1990s and 2000s, with the GDP increasing 56% from 1999 to 2008, transformed Brunei into an industrialised country. It has developed wealth from extensive petroleum and natural gas fields. Brunei has the second-highest Human Development Index among the Southeast Asian nations, after Singapore, and is classified as a "developed country".[13] According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Brunei is ranked fifth in the world by gross domestic product per capita at purchasing power parity. The IMF estimated in 2011 that Brunei was one of two countries (the other being Libya) with a public debt at 0% of the national GDP. Forbes also ranks Brunei as the fifth-richest nation out of 182, based on its petroleum and natural gas fields.[14] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brunei

According to that list, these countries spend more than 50% of GDP publicly:

The following countries in your list have mid-low GDP per capita (PPP), which's one way to measure a country's standard of living: China 16624$, Algeria 15150$, Thailand 17786$, Iran 20030$ and Botswana 18146$, world average: 16779$.Standard of living is not the same as having a large economy, for example China has the second largest economy in the world, but it also has the largest population in the world, so it's spread thinly among the people, the average Chinaman is just scraping by.I find it awfully suspicious most of the well off countries in your list are oil rich and/or small (Brunei, Macau, Qatar, Luxembourg, Ireland, the UAE, Singapore, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the Netherlands, Bahrain, Malta, Denmark, Czech Republic and Slovenia).I wonder if that has something to do with it?The only exceptions are Norway and Sweden.And as you know, correlation doesn't necessarily = causation.Did Brunei, Macau, Qatar and so on start spending a lot of money on the public before, or after they made it to the top?

Did the US send arms to rebels in germany to overthrow the government like in south american countries?

As the US closed bases in germany and began to leave, democracy increased. The more the US gets out of the way, the more democracy takes hold. The only reason the US exists in other countries is to prevent democracy for its own profit.

No it helped rebuild those countries.

Blacks are still the slaves of whites.

Why aren't Asians?

They are. So are Mexicans. And Indians. And anyone else.

Why're some tributaries more prosperous than others?

Europeans were technologically advanced by virtue of horses, domesticated animals, grains, good soil. We've been over that.

No it's because they have bigger brains and iQs, like east Asians, which you conceded.Jared Diamond's theory that the environment (alone) can explain why Europeans were more successful than others in many ways, is heavily academically contested.

Why didn't the Chinese colonize the Americas when they had the chance?

When did they have the chance?

If they were as adventurous, ambitious and explorational as Europeans, they would've found them, they had the technology.

If you think race, or at least culture has anything to do with this, you've got the blinders on.

That's like saying what breed of dog a dog is, and how it was nurtured, has nothing to do with how successful of a hunter it'll be.

Of course race has implications for success, the only sensible question is, to what degree?

1 scientist out of every 100 might tell me that. Unless the two you mentioned are the only two.

Perhaps it's a few more prestigious scientists than you think.

Race is a sensitive topic in the multicultural west, but in the monocultural east, their scientists have no qualms or reservations about attributing outcomes to race.

To have a theory you need correlation and mechanism, but you have neither unless you can cite one instance when atheists allied themselves for the racially pure cause. Once you complete that task, then you can propose a mechanism that explains the correlation.

On the other hand, I have an abundance of correlation associating theists rallying together for the morally absolute cause of racial purity. And my mechanism to explain the correlation is the mindset one chooses to view the world which stems from acknowledgement of absolute truth requisite to theism.

I can give you examples of predominantly theistic nations allying themselves, against the 'racially pure cause', can you give me an example of a predominantly atheistic nation allying itself against the racially pure cause?

No, as far as I know, there have never been atheists rallied together for anything except the extermination of theism. That's my point: how can you rally atheists together for any cause? There is no moral absolute to appeal to.

That's a contradiction in terms. Theists are by definition absolutists. I posted a video (on this thread I think) where two bright guys discuss every possible angle for knowing absolute truth: one says absolute truth cannot be known without god and the other says absolute truth cannot be known. The only reason to be a theist is to substantiate absolutism.

Atheist Ayn Rand was a moral absolutist, theist Spinoza was a moral relativist.

Rand was an idiot.Spinoza believed in god like I do and Alan Watts did.

And for some people, being a theist makes them happier, because they feel cared for.

What are you saying by that?

Absolute = made up. If the yardstick for determining "good values" is the absolute truth you made up, then how can the values be said to be good?

I'm not necessarily against, and may be in favor of someone absolutely supporting values I relatively support.

Absolutists scare me though.

And while absolute = made up, made up doesn't necessarily = absolute.

True but so what?

An atheist might say a good way to get from A to B is a straight line, or they might say a good way is to take the scenic route. Good and bad are relative to attainment of a goal, so whatever the goal is determines what is considered good.

An atheist may say it's relatively, or absolutely good to kill a person, or people.

As a matter of expediency maybe.

Theism and democracy are antipodal. Watts noted the dichotomy of the america people who claim to be citizens of a republic but worshiping a monarchical king. If people think the best model for the universe is a monarchy, why would they think the best form of government is a democracy? Indeed, those same people insist a small group of people control the masses lest mob rule prevail. The atheists, residing on the Left, think democracy is the best form of government and reject the monarchical model of the universe.

Are animism, deism, pantheism, polytheism and trinitarianism (gracious or merciful monotheism) on the one hand, and democracy on the other antipodal?

Deism and pantheism have no monarchical authoritarian to worship, so no. I don't know what the others are.

In service of their emperor god, sure.

When did Mao claim or his followers proclaim him to, literally be a god?

When did they not? Emperors have always been perceived as gods, so how could Mao have not been also perceived that way? It's as if people suddenly decided the next pope is not christ incarnate.

Then why only conservatives ban drugs? Clearly they blame the drug.

They blame the dealers and users too, that's why they imprison them, meanwhile progressives blame the addiction, which they attribute to an absent or abusive conservative father, capitalism, poverty...anything and everything but the individual.

The progressive position seems accurate to me. You can't blame the plant for how you raised it. You can't blame the child for how you raised it. You can't blame citizens for the society they grew up in.

The drug war is meant to criminalize undesirables. Prisons are concentration camps. If you can't make the rich richer, then you're herded into slums or prisons. Chomsky gave a lecture on this.

Stop catering to rich people and neither are a threat. The rich cannot serve in government or it's the fox guarding the henhouse.

While instituting checks and balances (which ought to include the division and, right limitations of powers (I have little respect for corporate sovereignty, but great respect for the sovereignty of individuals, families, communities, nations and small businesses) will help, any and every institution, including, perhaps especially government, is corruptible, and government corruption is the worst, because it's organized violence.

If rich people cannot exist in government, then it's hard to see how corruption could manifest.

Republicans ban everything. Dems only guns.

Democrats ban you from banning people, and behaviors from your family, business, country, club, community and church.

What's the problem? Why do you want to ban people?

If your club is private, you can ban anyone. If your club is open to the public, then it's open to anyone. If you think you can ban people from a public club, then the public can ban you from a public society by the same logic. So either play fair, or have your own ethics imposed on you. Makes sense right?

There are only greed wars and righteous wars. How many were greed wars?

Greed masquerading as religious, or secular righteousness is the rule, real righteousness the exception.

The settlers pushed the natives out because they wanted the gold (Dahlonega, GA had lots of gold). You push them out because you're righteous.

Where is evidence that progressives coddle muslims? I haven't researched it specifically, but last time I looked up Merkel, I found she was conservative. Is there someone who is not really a conservative under a socialist banner coddling muslims?

And the German parties to the left of Merkel want to coddle them even more.

Trump wants to ban all or some Muslims permanently or temporarily, ban all Muslim refugees, institute more background checks and surveillance on and of Muslims and he's not afraid to use the term radical Islam, meanwhile democrats oppose him on all this.

Right, but show me who is coddling muslims. Everyone talks about it, but I can't tell who is to blame. I don't have any particular affinity for muslims or natives or anyone and I just think people are people. Who are putting muslims on a pedestal?

I thought progressives didn't want a border. They also want to reduce the military.

They want a looser border, and while they, say they want to reduce the military, they're often nearly as hawkish as Republicans, and both the green party, and the libertarians would probably reduce the military a hell of a lot more.

Bernie Sanders@BernieSandersWe spend more on our military than the next 10 nations combined. American troops have been in Afghanistan for nearly 18 years, Iraq since 2003 and in Syria since 2015.We're going to invest in housing, public education and infrastructure, not never-ending wars.https://twitter.com/BernieSanders

Chomsky said military spending is corporate welfare.

Libertarians = ultra-conservatives.

I haven't seen anything he distorted. Afterall, Hitler lamented jesus was a weenie.

Here's just one example:

To accord with Nazi antisemitism, positive Christianity advocates also sought to deny the Semitic origins of Christ and the Bible.

Phyllo is arguing that the germans were the most educated people on the planet and yet Hitler could convince them that Jesus wasn't a jew? If all the village idiots left their villages and formed their own village of idiots, the village idiot of that village would still know Jesus was a jew.

Conjecture.

Referring to Hitler as Christian makes about as much sense as referring to Stalin as a communist.Other than claiming to be Christian, not only was everything Hitler did and said unchristian, but it was anti-Christian.

Hitler was christian when he wrote his book. He was not at some later date.I was christian, now i'm not.Matt Dillahunty was on his way to being a preacher, now runs an atheist call-in show and conducts debates with christians.Everyone on Matt's team was a christian, but are now atheists.Seth Andrews ran a christian call-in show, now gives atheist lectures.It's par for the course. I can't think of any atheist who was born that way. The vast majority started as christian.Why do you find such a regular occurrence so hard to believe? The answer to that is obvious to me and any fair-minded reader of this.

That is the assumption I reject on the basis of what I said before. You may as well claim I pretended to be christian in case I run for president one day.

If we caught a political party pretending to be Christian for at least the last 8 years of its existence (1937-1945, which is when they committed their atrocities, mind you), than not only is there no reason to believe they weren't pretending to be Christian the entire time, but if anything they probably were.

No, there is a good reason: the reason I stated above. Statistically, it's exceedingly unlikely for any atheist to not have been christian at one point. So on the basis of statistics alone, there is good reason. Plus, Hitler said in his own book that he was christian. Then he said in countless speeches that he was christian. So, giant reason + giant reason + giant reason = you focusing on remotely small chance that makes no sense except in the context of grasping for anything at all to defend your religion (that of your family anyway).

replacing the bible with Mein Kampf is a silly notion and I can't believe anyone in the Nazi party would have envisioned so. Either germans are much dumber than I thought or historians are dreaming.

He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future.

Adolf Hitler

Historians probably have fair-good reasons for believing this was Alfred Rosenberg and the Nazi Party's intent, what reason do you have for disregarding them?You haven't presented any.

Well for one, Mein Kampf appeals to christianity, so you can't have a new bible that appeals to the previous bible for a foundation. Second, the notion is completely idiotic. Even the most backwoods hillbilly would not substitute another book for the bible and neither would professors or anyone in between. I think you'd sooner convince me the earth is flat.

I posted that on here myself a couple weeks ago. What's your point? In the whole nazi party, two guys were paganists. And that's theism.

There's too much emphasis on Hitler and not enough on the Nazi Party.even if Hitler was Christian (which he wasn't, in fact he was (consciously) anti-Christian), the Nazi party had some pagans, irreligious theists, so it can't be blamed solely on a single religion.

I don't blame it on a single religion, but religion itself because religion = absolutism. The good/evil, right/wrong, us/them, white/brown type thinking that causes atrocities.

You have incentive to lie and are appealing to others who have incentive to lie in order to paint Hitler as a liar in his own book.

I have no incentive to lie, I'm agnostic,

Your family is christian and whites are typically christian, so you have HUGE incentive to lie.

and insofar as historians have reason to lie, Hitchens, who was an atheist and vehemently anti-Christian, all the more so.

Why did Hitchens have incentive to lie? I'm pretty sure his brother is still a christian and his family were christians.

All this is moot anyway since what's at issue is whether the people were theists and whether Hitler needed to leverage that theism in order to commit atrocities.

The point is not all theism is equal, some forms are easier to use to commit atrocities, or good deeds for that matter than others.

All guns kill, but not all kill with the same effectiveness, so what's your point?

If you didn't do that, then how would you pass his class?

This is a philosophy forum, not his class, there is no authority here.

How could you pass anyone's class? How could you get a degree in anything without accepting the authority of the professor?

But still, critical thinking aside, it's not likely Chomsky is going to be wrong. It's more likely that you are going to be wrong.

Says the guy who casually dismisses what multiple historians have to say about the Nazi Party's religion.

Only when they make utterly ridiculous claims like Mein Kampf replacing the bible. Chomsky's claims are sensible and backed by his notoriety. Your claims statistical flukes backed by incentive to lie. Where would a betting man put his money?

Chomsky may be highly regarded because he's primarily, well, highly regarded, many of his colleagues may've happened to be mistaken about him, and the colleagues of those colleagues may've had faith in their judgement, and so on down the line, so a big part of Chomsky's success may be luck, many people highly regarding him primarily because many people highly regard him, and few people ever critically examining him.

Everyone except the rich because the goal is to transfer money from everyone to the rich.

Republicrats aren't seeing the money, so why do they care? No, it's about fairness to their dimwitted minds: they think if the rich have to pay a tax that's it's only fair that the poor also pay the tax. That's the rationale behind the gas tax: let the ones who use the roads pay for the roads. But the corps get far more use from the roads than regular people.

Republicrats are bribed by special interests who stand to gain from their allegiance.

That and they're dimwitted morons who genuinely deify the rich or perceive them as victims.

There are only two ways: either the economy is circular or unidirectional: either the wealth recirculates or moves up.

You think too much about money, and not enough about the fact that those who choose to work will have to worker harder for less stuff if millions of people quit their job to live solely off UBI.

Oh yes, I think too much about facts and not the feels of your noble cause of enslavement. Start a new thread about it so I can get some public exposure and I'll explain it to you for the 20th time because, although you will certainly ignore everything I say, at least I'll have an audience to address. I'm not going to argue with a brick wall, buried in this thread, where no one can benefit by it.

How are you going to increase everyone's salary when the only possible way (outside of dictating wages) is to give people money for free? Read carefully: The only way to cause wages to rise is to give people the option not to work. Once people have the option to opt-out of the workforce, corps will have to raise wages to entice them back in. Alternatively, you could be dictator and decree wages higher or you could socialize all of industry such that every industry is under the management of the government and then everyone will be a government worker, then you could set wages how you like. But as long as private industry exists, then wages will be based on people's options, and if people do not have the option to work, then wages will always be low. The only way to hurt the poor is to hurt yourself.

Here's what I mean by what I'm now calling BSI (basic supplementary income):Government directly pays the employed and involuntary unemployed 10000$ annually at the richest 1%'s expense in addition to whatever their employers or welfare is paying them, it doesn't force employers to raise their wages.

Never gonna happen. UBI is coming so you'll have to think of another way to hurt people who won't prostitute themselves. Maybe you can throw eggs or something.

Having properly reared kids is imperative to society. People's knowledge about those other things doesn't matter so much.

How're you going to know how to take care of your kids if, according to you, you don't even know how to take care of yourself?

Bernie Sanders@BernieSandersThe ages 0-4 are the most important years of human development. The kids and parents of this country deserve quality, affordable child care. We will establish a high quality, universal pre-K program. https://twitter.com/BernieSanders

What's funny is the most socialist countries are at the top of the economic prosperity list while the most capitalistic are at the bottom, except the US, which prospered because of the oceans and in spite of capitalism. Race, apparently, has nothing to do with anything.

According to a list of private consumption I found online (and haven't verified yet, but I will), Brunei is the the most socialist country, publicly spending a whopping 80% of GDP. https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/v ... ominal-gdp

Economic growth during the 1990s and 2000s, with the GDP increasing 56% from 1999 to 2008, transformed Brunei into an industrialised country. It has developed wealth from extensive petroleum and natural gas fields. Brunei has the second-highest Human Development Index among the Southeast Asian nations, after Singapore, and is classified as a "developed country".[13] According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Brunei is ranked fifth in the world by gross domestic product per capita at purchasing power parity. The IMF estimated in 2011 that Brunei was one of two countries (the other being Libya) with a public debt at 0% of the national GDP. Forbes also ranks Brunei as the fifth-richest nation out of 182, based on its petroleum and natural gas fields.[14] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brunei

According to that list, these countries spend more than 50% of GDP publicly:

The following countries in your list have mid-low GDP per capita (PPP), which's one way to measure a country's standard of living: China 16624$, Algeria 15150$, Thailand 17786$, Iran 20030$ and Botswana 18146$, world average: 16779$.

Did you miss this? Brunei is ranked fifth in the world by gross domestic product per capita at purchasing power parity.

Standard of living is not the same as having a large economy, for example China has the second largest economy in the world, but it also has the largest population in the world, so it's spread thinly among the people, the average Chinaman is just scraping by.I find it awfully suspicious most of the well off countries in your list are oil rich and/or small (Brunei, Macau, Qatar, Luxembourg, Ireland, the UAE, Singapore, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the Netherlands, Bahrain, Malta, Denmark, Czech Republic and Slovenia).I wonder if that has something to do with it?The only exceptions are Norway and Sweden.And as you know, correlation doesn't necessarily = causation.Did Brunei, Macau, Qatar and so on start spending a lot of money on the public before, or after they made it to the top?

Did the US send arms to rebels in germany to overthrow the government like in south american countries?

As the US closed bases in germany and began to leave, democracy increased. The more the US gets out of the way, the more democracy takes hold. The only reason the US exists in other countries is to prevent democracy for its own profit.

No it helped rebuild those countries.

Dy1w4l2UUAAtcug.jpg (31.59 KiB) Viewed 2779 times

Blacks are still the slaves of whites.

Why aren't Asians?

They are. So are Mexicans. And Indians. And anyone else.

Why're some tributaries more prosperous than others?

Some are more useful than others. Some are more willing to play ball than others. Thugs are useful so long as they don't go rogue.

Europeans were technologically advanced by virtue of horses, domesticated animals, grains, good soil. We've been over that.

No it's because they have bigger brains and iQs, like east Asians, which you conceded.

The bigger brains came from the better soil. It's luck. Stick you head back in the sand and ignore me once again. This is getting old man.

Jared Diamond's theory that the environment (alone) can explain why Europeans were more successful than others in many ways, is heavily academically contested.

That's incredibly hard to believe.

Why didn't the Chinese colonize the Americas when they had the chance?

When did they have the chance?

If they were as adventurous, ambitious and explorational as Europeans, they would've found them, they had the technology.

They didn't have the right set of animals that the eurpeans had.

If you think race, or at least culture has anything to do with this, you've got the blinders on.

That's like saying what breed of dog a dog is, and how it was nurtured, has nothing to do with how successful of a hunter it'll be.

Of course race has implications for success, the only sensible question is, to what degree?

Sure but the breed of dog came into existence as a result of the environment. You can never escape that fact, except burying your head in the ground in ignore-ance.

All I can figure is you think breeds came into existence by magic or that someone orchestrated it... or maybe the breed of dog existed before it existed and orchestrated its own existence. I don't know what you're dreaming.

White men existed before white men existed so that they could orchestrate the evolution of white men so that white men could get the credit for the creation of white men. That's insane.

White men came into existence because of the environment. Period. It's luck. No one gets a trophy for being white. "Good job making yourself white, man!"

1 scientist out of every 100 might tell me that. Unless the two you mentioned are the only two.

Perhaps it's a few more prestigious scientists than you think.

I might take time to watch that if I thought you took time to watch mine, but I'm just not that interested in this topic.

I was racist before. I've heard the arguments of Stefan Molynuex. IQ differences exist, but how those difference came to be is a result of the environment.

Race is a sensitive topic in the multicultural west, but in the monocultural east, their scientists have no qualms or reservations about attributing outcomes to race.

I don't have a problem with it either, but the cause for the racial difference is environmental. Anyone denying that is expressing inferiority of cognitive ability.

How do you figure that? It's stupid to want an engine to make more power with less fuel?

Sometimes trying to make something more efficient isn't worth the effort, because it can't be done, or it can't be done without making something else less efficient, or miserable.

Our problem is too much concentration of wealth and power in too few hands, not inefficiency.

Wealth concentration is inefficient.

I meant our major problem isn't the absence of efficient technology, it's that the lower classes aren't really benefitting from the presence of efficient technology.

If you don't like small-scale agriculture, don't support it with your buck.

I don't usually, but it's because it's expensive and inconvenient and not really a protest.

Some prefer it.

We are talking in the context of taking a scientific approach to society, so profit is not a main driving force. Welfare of animals and nutrition would be variables taken into account once we change the focus from profit to efficiency.

Firstly, I want to take a more bottom-up (socialist) and philosophical approach more than a more top-down (communist or corporatist) and scientific or religious approach.Secondly, there's no reason why consumers and small businesses can't take a scientific approach to society, especially after being emancipated and empowered by my plan.

Well that's what I've been trying to say: the only reason we can't engineer an efficient society is those who are against it are still sucking air. The faster they crash their harleys, the sooner we can get on with it.

Some urban progressives prefer small local to big global too, so I guess you'll just have to shoot them.

And while their numbers appear to be gradually, relatively (and absolutely) declining, there'll always be countryfolk, at least, for the foreseeable future.

Mankind won't make it anyway. The universe won't last forever.

That's just scientists' educatedguess.

If you cut people off welfare, then people are forced to work to survive. Because people are forced to work, wages will plummet. Why pay high wages if people are forced to take whatever you offer? "I offer you 25 cents per day. You can take it or go starve. I have a line of applicants a mile long after you."

The only things holding wages up as high as they are now is welfare, min wage, government jobs, and parents.

We've been over this, shorten the workweek...or maybe we won't have to, since the employed won't have to work as much (for they'll be richer, because of BSI), there'll be more jobs for the unemployed to do.

slaves to whites, that is. Well, I don't have a full answer, but here's part of my reaction to this issue. Asians are very good at making themselves slaves to themselves (and their families), cutting off their own emotions, cutting themself off from the joys of life, and ignoring interpersonal dynamics - or perhaps better put, hiding their reactions to them. These all benefit people who live in fucked up societies. Whites are not as good as the Asians at this, and blacks are worse than that. Fine, you can say, they are worse at something. I don't think these are things to be good at. I am going to black box the culture vs. nature issue, just acknowledge that there are differences. I am going to generally what is, of course, a spectrum. Asians would (seem to, I would argue) thrive while internally ripping out things I consider essential human from their souls. Whites can do it, and often look at the Asians and think 'where is the person or the individual, or the life soul in that person.' Well, blacks look at whites and wonder the same thing. What is that deadness? This is fucking LIFE?

There is a real downside to loving life, especially the bristling passionate on inside yourself.

Most of us pretend. Most of those pretending are not aware of how much they are sitting on emotionally or giving up or are not really that alive, just kind of husks walking around doing what they are told and believing it.

When I am with blacks, as opposed to white and Asians, I feel like I am more in the real world, with people who are actually reacting to it and feeling it. This doesn't make it all peachy. The real world has those of us who feel swirling with stress and not pleasant reactions (amidst the rest) but I feel in a room with people actually connected to reality and giving a shit abuot it, and also connected to their own reactions to it and really caring about that. I feel that less with whites, and even less with Asians.

People who succeed in our society often cut parts of themselves out. I am not sure that being better at this is simply better.

I am tired of all the zombies.

Good points.every race has talents and things to admire.Whites are pretty well rounded.Often we can be nearly as spirited as Africans on the one hand, and nearly as disciplined as east Asians (when it pays to be) on the other.Overall I think we used to be more like east Asians, but centuries of intimate contact with Africans, Latinos and Native Americans have mellowed us out, made us less uptight, as well as relatively good times, decadence.This is especially true of Anglo-Americans, and Southern Europeans, who're always a little more, joie de vivre, laisse faire than Northerners.

And I understand what you mean that being more alive, more connected, less domesticated, robotlike, means you feel more intensely, both positively and negatively.It also means you may be more of a threat to the establishment in all sorts of ways.

If you don't like small-scale agriculture, don't support it with your buck.

I don't usually, but it's because it's expensive and inconvenient and not really a protest.

Some prefer it.

Yeah but the inconvenience trumps the preference. Sometimes I'll get vidalia onions, but the ones from peru are just as good, maybe better. It's the same onion in different soil that by law cannot be called vidalia. Peru has better climate for growing just about all our food except grains n such. Tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, and who knows what all originated in south-central america. Tomatoes grown around here will be deficient because the soil sucks. They taste better because the variety is different and they're ripened naturally. Better soil exists in the midwest, but it's more suited for grains. California might be ok.

We are talking in the context of taking a scientific approach to society, so profit is not a main driving force. Welfare of animals and nutrition would be variables taken into account once we change the focus from profit to efficiency.

Firstly, I want to take a more bottom-up (socialist) and philosophical approach more than a more top-down (communist or corporatist) and scientific or religious approach.

Right.

Secondly, there's no reason why consumers and small businesses can't take a scientific approach to society, especially after being emancipated and empowered by my plan.

There is a good reason: the total of lots of small companies making profit is orders of magnitude higher than the profit required to run one massive operation. The loss of efficiency is through the roof with small companies.

Well that's what I've been trying to say: the only reason we can't engineer an efficient society is those who are against it are still sucking air. The faster they crash their harleys, the sooner we can get on with it.

Some urban progressives prefer small local to big global too, so I guess you'll just have to shoot them.

No, just need the boomers out of the way.

And while their numbers appear to be gradually, relatively (and absolutely) declining, there'll always be countryfolk, at least, for the foreseeable future.

They will be a new breed... one with an education and the internet.

Mankind won't make it anyway. The universe won't last forever.

That's just scientists' educatedguess.

No it's logical deduction. If there is any chance of extinction, then in infinite time it's a certainty. So either you concede there is no chance of extinction or you concede it's inevitable Either way, what are you worried about?

If you cut people off welfare, then people are forced to work to survive. Because people are forced to work, wages will plummet. Why pay high wages if people are forced to take whatever you offer? "I offer you 25 cents per day. You can take it or go starve. I have a line of applicants a mile long after you."

The only things holding wages up as high as they are now is welfare, min wage, government jobs, and parents.

We've been over this, shorten the workweek...or maybe we won't have to, since the employed won't have to work as much (for they'll be richer, because of BSI), there'll be more jobs for the unemployed to do.

Alright, let's paint this picture so the ridiculousness of it is more readily apparent.

You're roping me into pitching-in at star bucks to serve coffee so that someone else can have a shorter week. I'd don't want to serve coffee. If you want coffee, make your own damn coffee. You can't conscript me into serving you coffee in order to make some opulent jerk richer.

Should I do time at the IRS too? Gotta pitch in with the audits, ya know.

Where else is this chain gang heading?

You're authoritatively conscripting people into making the rich richer so that the other people who are making the rich richer can work shorter weeks, the length of which you'll decree by law, of course.

If you want to make the rich richer, then go make the rich richer, but leave me out of your fetishes. Keep your manacles away from me.

We should pay people not to work, and if the wage isn't enough, then people can go find supplemental work. The lack of supply of workers will drive wages up, which will entice people to work. People will have the freedom to decide what they want to do and mothers can be mothers instead of wage slaves. We wouldn't need a min wage law, no new laws, just money in the mail. What's to complain about? Oh yeah, punishing people who don't conform to your standards, which includes prostitution for survival. Snap out of it man! Even in Monopoly you get $200 every time you pass go.

You'll be taking wealth and power from small business (us) to give to big (them), so unless you want to nationalize or unionize big businesses, that makes you an elitist.

Yeah but the inconvenience trumps the preference. Sometimes I'll get vidalia onions, but the ones from peru are just as good, maybe better. It's the same onion in different soil that by law cannot be called vidalia. Peru has better climate for growing just about all our food except grains n such. Tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, and who knows what all originated in south-central america. Tomatoes grown around here will be deficient because the soil sucks. They taste better because the variety is different and they're ripened naturally. Better soil exists in the midwest, but it's more suited for grains. California might be ok.

Well that's your opinion, some people only buy small local because that's all that's available in their neighborhood, and they wish there were more big global, other people only buy big global because that's all that's available in their neighborhood, and they wish there were more small local.Big business isn't inherently cheaper, more convenient, ecofriendly, efficient, healthy or aesthetic than small.

There is a good reason: the total of lots of small companies making profit is orders of magnitude higher than the profit required to run one massive operation. The loss of efficiency is through the roof with small companies.

Unless you want to nationalize and/or syndicate big business, it will still be making a profit, even with UBI or USI, and I'd rather have many small businesses making small profits, than one big business making big profits.Small businesses are already proportionally less exploitive than big, and under my plan, almost everyone will be able to save, become self employed, start their own small business or co-op, and invest loads of money.My plan will encourage more people to become independent, whereas yours will encourage more to become either dependent on meagre provisions from an authoritarian government, or big business, which's what the elite want.

They will be a new breed... one with an education and the internet.

For the last millennium, every generation has been more educated than the last, yet capitalist still win 50% of the time, and the other 50% pseudo-socialists.

No it's logical deduction. If there is any chance of extinction, then in infinite time it's a certainty. So either you concede there is no chance of extinction or you concede it's inevitable Either way, what are you worried about?

Maybe there's a 50/50% chance we'll make it for the first million years of progress, but if we make it over that hurdle, further progress will be inevitable.

Or maybe me and others worrying about our survival is part of what makes it inevitable.

Last edited by Gloominary on Sat Mar 09, 2019 3:59 am, edited 1 time in total.

every democracy is deeply flawed, including Nordic countries as we've seen, and the fact that your list doesn't get that, invalidates it.

When free money flows from the ground, sometimes they spread it around. I started a thread on this viewtopic.php?f=3&t=194766

Right, spreading it around is a consequence, not a cause of economic growth.And who or what are they spreading the 50%+ tax around on anyway?Might be on stuff that doesn't actually benefit the poor.

Some are more useful than others. Some are more willing to play ball than others. Thugs are useful so long as they don't go rogue.

The ones with bigger brains and higher iQs tend to be more able and willing to play ball.

The bigger brains came from the better soil. It's luck. Stick you head back in the sand and ignore me once again. This is getting old man.

No it came from DNA, among other internal factors, which you've already conceded.

Sure but the breed of dog came into existence as a result of the environment. You can never escape that fact, except burying your head in the ground in ignore-ance.

All I can figure is you think breeds came into existence by magic or that someone orchestrated it... or maybe the breed of dog existed before it existed and orchestrated its own existence. I don't know what you're dreaming.

White men existed before white men existed so that they could orchestrate the evolution of white men so that white men could get the credit for the creation of white men. That's insane.

White men came into existence because of the environment. Period. It's luck. No one gets a trophy for being white. "Good job making yourself white, man!"

I don't have a problem with it either, but the cause for the racial difference is environmental. Anyone denying that is expressing inferiority of cognitive ability.

Firstly, everything that happens to someone or something is a result of both external, and internal factors.

Secondly, it is not an injustice for the smart, strong and hardworking to prosper more than the not so smart etcetera, it is justice, so white people don't owe others anything.

If rich people cannot exist in government, then it's hard to see how corruption could manifest.

The rich could promise to make the poor governors rich after they exit government.

What's the problem? Why do you want to ban people?

If your club is private, you can ban anyone. If your club is open to the public, then it's open to anyone. If you think you can ban people from a public club, then the public can ban you from a public society by the same logic. So either play fair, or have your own ethics imposed on you. Makes sense right?

My club is something I own, our country is something we own, so the two are not equivalent.

The settlers pushed the natives out because they wanted the gold (Dahlonega, GA had lots of gold). You push them out because you're righteous.

I don't want to push the natives out, I don't have a problem with them so long as they don't think I owe them something they don't owe me.

Bernie Sanders@BernieSandersWe spend more on our military than the next 10 nations combined. American troops have been in Afghanistan for nearly 18 years, Iraq since 2003 and in Syria since 2015.We're going to invest in housing, public education and infrastructure, not never-ending wars.https://twitter.com/BernieSanders

Chomsky said military spending is corporate welfare.

Trump hasn't started any new wars I'm aware of, whereas Obama and the Clintons did.

Libertarians = ultra-conservatives.

On the economy I party agree with you, but recall Finland, they want the middle class to pay the same % of tax as the rich, and the working class to pay half that.Since the rich often evade taxes, they'll end up paying say the same % of tax as the poor or less, so essentially what we have is the middle class paying for the poor's crumbs and the rich's corporate welfare, so if libertarians are ultra-conservative, than everyone is.

And on social and foreign policy I totally disagree.

And how far did he get with that?

Phyllo is arguing that the germans were the most educated people on the planet and yet Hitler could convince them that Jesus wasn't a jew? If all the village idiots left their villages and formed their own village of idiots, the village idiot of that village would still know Jesus was a jew.

It doesn't matter how many Germans actually drank the cool aid, the point is the Nazis were serving it, for they weren't Christians, they were Social Darwinists and neopagans.

Hitler was christian when he wrote his book. He was not at some later date.I was christian, now i'm not.Matt Dillahunty was on his way to being a preacher, now runs an atheist call-in show and conducts debates with christians.Everyone on Matt's team was a christian, but are now atheists.Seth Andrews ran a christian call-in show, now gives atheist lectures.It's par for the course. I can't think of any atheist who was born that way. The vast majority started as christian.Why do you find such a regular occurrence so hard to believe? The answer to that is obvious to me and any fair-minded reader of this.

If you discovered the woman you were married to for 10 years was plotting to kill you, for you found and read her diary, and in it there was a five year old entry where she wrote she hated you and was plotting to kill you after you became sufficiently wealthy, would you assume the day before she wrote that entry she loved you?Of course not, you would presume she was using you for most or the entire time, especially if upon further reflection, you realized everything she did was 100% for her, and not at all for you.

No, there is a good reason: the reason I stated above. Statistically, it's exceedingly unlikely for any atheist to not have been christian at one point. So on the basis of statistics alone, there is good reason.

Sure, perhaps when they were kids, but not for long after they joined the Nazi Party.

Well for one, Mein Kampf appeals to christianity, so you can't have a new bible that appeals to the previous bible for a foundation.

I'm sure they were going to edit that part out.

Second, the notion is completely idiotic. Even the most backwoods hillbilly would not substitute another book for the bible and neither would professors or anyone in between. I think you'd sooner convince me the earth is flat.

You don't know anything about Nazi philosophy then, they saw the bible as the very antithesis of everything they stood for, they blamed democracy, communism and all they considered degenerate and weak in Europe on it, permitting all whom they hated to survive and flourish,for them it was either usher in a new scientific,pagan era,or perish

I don't blame it on a single religion, but religion itself because religion = absolutism. The good/evil, right/wrong, us/them, white/brown type thinking that causes atrocities.

You can be irreligious and an absolutist or relativist and still discriminate.

And discrimination isn't bad if it's your preference and it's not unreasonable.

Your family is christian and whites are typically christian, so you have HUGE incentive to lie.

So do you, most of those hillbillies you hate are Christian.

Why did Hitchens have incentive to lie? I'm pretty sure his brother is still a christian and his family were christians.

I thought Hitchens was left-wing across the board, but politically he was mixed.

All guns kill, but not all kill with the same effectiveness, so what's your point?

Guns can be used to defend people or act as a deterrence too, and religion isn't just a gun, it's charity, community, etcetera.

How could you pass anyone's class? How could you get a degree in anything without accepting the authority of the professor?

I could regurgitate the answers I know they want without believing all or any of them.

Liberty isn't just a means to an end for some people, even irreligious people, it can be an end in and of itself.

You can value liberty and still value other values simultaneously.

You be can be both reservedly willing to sacrifice some liberty for the sake of other values at times, and reservedly willing to sacrifice other values for the sake of liberty at times, it doesn't have to be a one way street.

I think the fundamental difference between your socialism (or your communism, for as time goes on I can see you wish to expand government far beyond UBI) and my socialism, is for me it's ultimately a means to an end (extrinsic socialism), something limited and perhaps temporary, the end being greater freedom and independence, the more free and independent we are the less we'll need it, whereas for you it's an end in and of itself (intrinsic socialism), something absolute and permanent.

You'll be taking wealth and power from small business (us) to give to big (them), so unless you want to nationalize or unionize big businesses, that makes you an elitist.

It's happening on its own. It would take gov intervention to prevent the consolidation. Big farms eat small farms because big farms produce cheaper food. Only an elitist could stop it.

Yeah but the inconvenience trumps the preference. Sometimes I'll get vidalia onions, but the ones from peru are just as good, maybe better. It's the same onion in different soil that by law cannot be called vidalia. Peru has better climate for growing just about all our food except grains n such. Tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, and who knows what all originated in south-central america. Tomatoes grown around here will be deficient because the soil sucks. They taste better because the variety is different and they're ripened naturally. Better soil exists in the midwest, but it's more suited for grains. California might be ok.

Well that's your opinion, some people only buy small local because that's all that's available in their neighborhood, and they wish there were more big global, other people only buy big global because that's all that's available in their neighborhood, and they wish there were more small local.Big business isn't inherently cheaper, more convenient, ecofriendly, efficient, healthy or aesthetic than small.

I think it is inherent.

The profit to run lots of little farms is more than the profit required to run one big farm.The pollution required to run lots of little farms is more than the pollution required to run one big farm.It's easier to regulate one big farm than lots of little farms.

There is a good reason: the total of lots of small companies making profit is orders of magnitude higher than the profit required to run one massive operation. The loss of efficiency is through the roof with small companies.

Unless you want to nationalize and/or syndicate big business, it will still be making a profit, even with UBI or USI, and I'd rather have many small businesses making small profits, than one big business making big profits.

Yes and Trump would rather get rid of all robots so we could go back to 1955. Lots of people want to decrease efficiency for sentimental reasons.

Small businesses are already proportionally less exploitive than big,

No, I disagree. The small ones exploit far more than the big. They have to to stay in business in competition with the big.

and under my plan, almost everyone will be able to save, become self employed, start their own small business or co-op, and invest loads of money.

Most people do not want to run their own business and are not capable of it.

My plan will encourage more people to become independent, whereas yours will encourage more to become either dependent on meagre provisions from an authoritarian government, or big business, which's what the elite want.

I'd consider myself more free while depending on government than I would depending on employment. Rights come from government.

They will be a new breed... one with an education and the internet.

For the last millennium, every generation has been more educated than the last, yet capitalist still win 50% of the time, and the other 50% pseudo-socialists.

Capitalists are getting their clock cleaned by socialists. What planet are you living on?

No it's logical deduction. If there is any chance of extinction, then in infinite time it's a certainty. So either you concede there is no chance of extinction or you concede it's inevitable Either way, what are you worried about?

Maybe there's a 50/50% chance we'll make it for the first million years of progress, but if we make it over that hurdle, further progress will be inevitable.

Or maybe me and others worrying about our survival is part of what makes it inevitable.

Dude, the fact that you're terrified of extinction, outgroups taking over, and that poor people may get something for nothing means you. are. brain. damaged. That's not an insult. Take it seriously. You should be angry at the system that did this to you. The good news is I got out of it and you can too.

every democracy is deeply flawed, including Nordic countries as we've seen, and the fact that your list doesn't get that, invalidates it.

The list doesn't posit that the #1 rank is a perfect democracy, but just that it's more democratic than #2. And as Sil pointed out, the US should really rank much lower, perhaps in the 50s.

When free money flows from the ground, sometimes they spread it around. I started a thread on this viewtopic.php?f=3&t=194766

Right, spreading it around is a consequence, not a cause of economic growth.

Economic growth? What the heck does that mean? Oil flowing from the ground is economic growth? Is prostitution economic growth? If we tear down a house and rebuild it, it counts in gdp, but is it economic growth? Tornadoes are economic growth? You get a speeding ticket and that's economic growth? Economic growth is meaningless.

As President, I will…Change the way we measure the economy, from GDP and the stock market to a more inclusive set of measurements that ensures humans are thriving, not barely making it by. New measurements like Median Income and Standard of Living, Health-adjusted Life Expectancy, Mental Health, Childhood Success Rates, Social and Economic Mobility, Absence of Substance Abuse, and other measurements will give us a much clearer and more powerful sense of how we are doing both individually and as a society. https://www.yang2020.com/policies/human-capitalism/

Leave it to an Asian to think clearly LOL!

And who or what are they spreading the 50%+ tax around on anyway?Might be on stuff that doesn't actually benefit the poor.

True.

Some are more useful than others. Some are more willing to play ball than others. Thugs are useful so long as they don't go rogue.

The ones with bigger brains and higher iQs tend to be more able and willing to play ball.

Yeah maybe.

The bigger brains came from the better soil. It's luck. Stick you head back in the sand and ignore me once again. This is getting old man.

No it came from DNA, among other internal factors, which you've already conceded.

And dna came from the environment. Still getting old man.

Sure but the breed of dog came into existence as a result of the environment. You can never escape that fact, except burying your head in the ground in ignore-ance.

All I can figure is you think breeds came into existence by magic or that someone orchestrated it... or maybe the breed of dog existed before it existed and orchestrated its own existence. I don't know what you're dreaming.

White men existed before white men existed so that they could orchestrate the evolution of white men so that white men could get the credit for the creation of white men. That's insane.

White men came into existence because of the environment. Period. It's luck. No one gets a trophy for being white. "Good job making yourself white, man!"

I don't have a problem with it either, but the cause for the racial difference is environmental. Anyone denying that is expressing inferiority of cognitive ability.

Firstly, everything that happens to someone or something is a result of both external, and internal factors.

The internal could only come from the external unless the internal existed before it existed in order to create itself.

Secondly, it is not an injustice for the smart, strong and hardworking to prosper more than the not so smart etcetera, it is justice, so white people don't owe others anything.